Hozan Alan Senauke The World Is What You Make It

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nice to see all of you here seems a little loud can hear back hell
zodiac
before i get started just to say that in a few weeks we will be beginning power of for aspects of practice period and all that is a a month-long practice period where we will deal with
basics of of our zen practice ah and
this year order doing something a little differently of will have for the first time a shoe store had student for aspects of practice net will be catherine cascade shall be taking the had students seen if she
it says to at which we will not know until the moment when she is asked
ah and i'll be leaving it in cooperation and collaboration with the other senior students and we will be studying a wonderful writing of duggan's are called a guidelines for practicing the way or gosh
kudo huge issue which covers are very basic points of of zen practice and the beasts classes and a the teas and breakfasts with the shiso and toxin of does an instruction so we invite everybody to participate and
a it's usually very energetic ah it's a way of intensifying your practice and committing yourself with this period of time ah
and we stay more with the basics than we do in the spring practice period which is a little longer so just to let you know that that's happening
today the number since i've been thinking about or
and
i guess the title of this talk is the world is what you make it
there's a wonderful song which are not going to seem to you i've been debating respect for life or by the people anybody know of the the irish singer paul brady
nobody in this room he's a magus far in ireland and he is just incredible
singer and songwriter and this is a song into some of yours or and the courses is just very simple as the world is what you make it the world is what you make it baby the world is what you make it
then one of the vs that i like a lot is don't start to hit me go start to hit me with your know can do and in his refrain blues and losing working up an attitude clean up their windows let the sun shine through
there ain't no happy time without no pain heartbreak new day move on up the alleyway pick up the pieces hit the road again the world is what you make it
so for anybody who wants to know patent offices confession or mistake or what but if you want to see a great performance of the song or it's on my facebook page
hey you know ah i just posted at last night i found the poverty recording and on youtube him and posted it's really fantastic anyway ah i've been thinking about this a lot in light of of but we've been studying
during the retreat that we had a steady retreat that we had with sojourn roshi in ah how for labor day we studied a
at all chinese poems the a pokey as am i with the precious mirror samadi which is also very related to which had that here and a related to an ar twenty earlier poem that
sixty seven years earlier from chinese that we shared which is the sandow chi or the harmonious song of difference and sameness
so of
some a lot of you were at that study not going to repeat it but i was struck by this
keep coming back to this question of ha however you want to how are we want to frame at this a the song go back to song the song of difference of say of difference in sameness i made a list or
of these various ways that you could frame
this is what's known as the two truths in buddhism and in buddhism or would often in ten we often talk of our practices not one not too
a kind of conundrum
so is to choose you can say you can call them the absolute and relative or the dark and light can call emptiness and form
stillness activity
nirvana samsara
host guest
upright and inclined
essence and phenomenon
one this difference
ocean wave better it's a really useful one ocean wave ah so there's various ways that it's various words that we use because we work in words to express this
now i must say i've always remembered i don't remember a lot from college and pro have a few have any if you do but i remember a professor who who said this are there are two kinds of people in the world
those who divide things into and those who don't
why
right anywhere two kinds of people in the world those who divide things into and those who don't and just think about that for a while until your brain meltdown ah however
something and sojourn though she said have a month or two ago i forget the context where there was a saturday lecture or a of on a monday question and answer ah he was also speaking to a
he was answering a question about the two truths and he said ah this was the formulation trust one if you like ah here's the truth of things
as is it should put a things as it is where things as they are
and truth to was
how you feel about them
that was
i don't know if when i taught this decision or of that seem an extraordinary a formulation to him i said where did it come from and intellect select well you know this is just what i was thinking if the time as then what is there some citation you know your source
for this ah because it seemed to me and an extraordinary furnish formulation that really worked to unpack
reality
ah self the truth of things as they are reality as it is and then the truth of how you feel about them
how you feel about the life that you leave how you feel about the circumstances that you're in awe and i have never heard i searched and do not find that formulation and quite that way any place but i think it really hits the mark
the question is how do you live how do you practice what do you do right as you're sitting in the midst of that in zazen
how do you live your life in the midst of that and it struck me that ah
so when we talk about these to choose if we think about it is not one not two then you know necessarily for
we understand them as interpenetrating each other
ah so
the reality of things shapes how we feel about them and else is part of it fits the reality of things includes how we feel about them and how we feel about them creates the reality
gotta the recent so that is the world is what you make it
ah
don't try to hit me with your know can do
losing losing working up an attitude to the attitude is
where we go from how we feel once we feel something once we have an idea
and this is mrs not feeling in the technical of a dharma buddhist way is feeling like
it's feeling in in the sense that we make up a story that how things are
ah and we we attached to it
ah and want to be attached to it than we projected into the into the world and into the future
and lo and behold it becomes reality
whether we like it or not
ah
so
this is what i mean by the world is what you make
where
what a deceptive
ha with this for me
was thinking just
been really disturbed by what i see going on in this country
what i see that that's emerged to merge very sharply around the healthcare debate
ah
and i see it is logical
there's a biologicals as someone said to me there's a biological existential fear that we have of cleaning to life
it's not necessarily reality is it's the reaction
that we have when there's there's something that's in the sense in in asia
he might be a neurological or or go mammalian sense or perhaps even animal since we have that as in a very deeply imprinted
ha habit from reaction but that's not necessarily the truth and oh that was something of a safe the truth of how you feel about it how you feel about it is not
disrupted the truth right that the recent satisfaction is just how you feel about it than you may get a truth so this is what i see in you know in the rhetoric has been going on
you have off
is this extraordinary ah
what i read the paper you have the deserters the people who think that obama has created death panels you have the bursar's the people who believe that obama is not really an american citizen not born here you have been tensors who believed that the tenth i'm in
mint prohibits or regulations from spent and regulations in spending programs you have the teabaggers which is another movement sending obama a tea bags to remind him of the the boston tea party you as you know you have the oath keepers which
is another right wing movement who think that are they have the right to rebel because or obama has violated his oath of office you have all this bullshit
ah that becomes reality for people and then is shaping the reality is shaping the world that we're living it
ah so you have these these incredible simultaneous formulations were this per our first
african american president who is you know by virtue of ah birth and race alone becomes is fantastic field for projection off new has been called a communist he recalled simultaneously a communist or fascist and racist
you know like
so
that's about i'm not gonna go into the politics of that but i want to lay it out because it conditions are world it is also expressive not of those guys worlds but of my world of your world how'd you do this even if you're not doing exactly
that kind of pigeonholing
so in the last couple weeks have been
many of you know i'm i'm involved in a lot of interfaith social action and different kinds of activities so part of a program at the san francisco foundation called the face initiative ah
a face program which is an interface very diverse with a great group of people and we were trying to do our strategic plan for for two thousand and ten and everybody agrees or the the media thing is to work on health care
and these are mostly clergy people ah think of the only beyond the only buddhist but otherwise it's diverse of various kinds of christian muslim jewish have
some people will work in social services from a religious basis for some people will the congregations
ha and it was very interestingly just understandably wanna come up with strategy and policy to
to bring about it and use of you know i have a meaningful health care bill ah and
but everything that they were doing was about social policy so how do we convince how do we argue how do we
get people to see to to come down on our side
and i said
i'm it occurred to me as i was listening that we have a really unusual opportunity as people who are minister as people give talks of people who preach which is to what's underneath all this stuff this birthers intense debtors and tensors and all that shit
ah is fear
can we talk about fear in our confrontations can we talk about fear and i wasn't even saying self thing i wasn't framing it in buddhist terms which we could analyze very very deeply and i'll talk about a will analyze in some more as we go
on ah
and but this is this is a way that religious people get to interact ah with in intimacy with with people in their communities and it was really interesting how it happened both there and also i'm on the
executive committee of something called the california people of faith working against the death penalty when i went to a meeting of that about a week later same thing you know ah how do we
you know how do we defeat
ah the other side ah and again i'd brought up well can we talk about fear can we talk about what is really the characteristic and reactive element that ah most people
in the direction towards towards is really punitive ah and small minded ah solutions
in many ways it's fear is fear for their safety it's fear for their ah
for their lives as fearful for lives of their children their parents and this is not actually really hard to understand
but can we address it as fear can we understand there's a this basis and in both cases what was really interesting to me was said
the instant reaction was very positive in a whole good idea you know not lot of hot enough heads nodding and off a lot of a support for this as a as an inside and within about a minute and a half right back to strategy
rising us in them
no traction at all
so i've really been thinking about this
ah and i just figured okay well let's start
from going to be giving this talk let's start here
you know this is how do we talk about the fact that the world is what we make it
and that how do we live in a way
that is truly free from the inside out
and not conditioned by fear
i've been working or the week we chant this all the time you know in the hundred every day we shared the heart sutra arrive every day we the heart sutra we said we save an off with nothing to attain
the bodhisattva depends on pressure upon me down the perfection of wisdom and
what his mind is no hindrance without any hindrance no fears exist
one's mind is no hindrance means we're not
when not diluted by greed hatred and delusion and all of the ah when i pulled away by them and all of their the really particular manifestations of death that you know quite numerous

how do we not worry about that how do we not have anxiety about the small things of life
and it's a very large thinks of our life itself ah
at the steady retreat zojirushi said said two things cause similar are we were talking about this suffering this anxiety this you know this kind of formless
unsettled this and egg
ah which are in the text we were working from is the it where vexation which is actually really good work ah
and ah he said your vexation is your treasure
you know this is what we've been given to work with what we've given the very thing if you're able to stop and look at
if i'm able to stop and look at what i'm afraid of
just a pause sit breathe
not allow us to move me around then
then i actually have the opportunity to transform transform it hess
to remake the world
but i remake the world from the inside out beginning here ah
what to read a couple other quotations have some of you know i've been working on burma fishing is fruit
for quite a while ah

the wonderful analysis of the unsung sushi people know about some sushi who's the
the has a present the leader of the burmese democracy movement in nineteen ninety the
sure she gave the so-called freedom from fear as it's have a bruised analysis ah but let me ah that would be discussing it goes to a really interesting place it is not power that corrupts by feared fear of losing power corrupts those
who wielded fan fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it
most burmese or for are familiar with the for a gotti the for kinds of corruption
ah chanda dougherty corruption induced by desire
his deviation from the right path in pursuit of bribes or for those or for the sake of those one loves does her got he is taking a wrong path despite those against whom one bears ill will